Sundress
by rhoddlet
Summary: Hermione comes to visit, wears a sundress, and steals Weasley hearts.


Title: Sundress  
  
Author: rhoddlet  
  
E-mail: rhoddlet@hotmail.com  
  
Rating: PG-13 for girls thinking nasty thoughts about other girls.  
  
Pairings: Slightly sexual Ginny Weasley x Hermione Granger. Non-sexual Ron Weasley x Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger x Harry Potter.  
  
Summary: Hermione comes to visit, wears a sundress, and steals Weasley hearts.  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
This little bastard woke me up at two thirty in the morning and demanded to be written. Inspired by Audrey's "Speak, Desire." I had no idea of the possibilities of girlslash before that, and all I can think about now are Ginny and Hermione. Ginny and Hermione. Ginny and Hermione.  
  
Written while listening to "Love is like Oxygen" by BC Sweet. You get too much//you get too high//not enough, and you're gonna die, but time is definitely not our Ginny's side.  
  
I want feedback. rhoddlet@hotmail.com  
  
*  
  
At this point, Ginny realizes that she's doomed to fall in love with the people her brothers bring home. Bad enough with Harry, unattainable and graceful with eyes that made you feel like you were looking into an bottomless well with high-noon sun burning the brains out of your head. Worse with Allison, who the twins brought home out of sheer pity because her family was such a set of insufferable bores. All of that was bad enough, but this is beyond belief, because Hermione is visiting Ron just so she can spend two weeks with Harry when he comes at the end of the summer. Beyond belief because she can see Ron wanting Hermione as clearly as she can see the brown-blue Weasley eyes in his face.  
  
Ron's off in a thoroughly bad way, Ginny realizes. There's the way he goes just to pieces whenever Hermione's around, and then, there's the little desperate things she's never seen him do for anyone else. Will stand in the kitchen, and press his fingers into the back of the chair she sits in at dinner, as if those are her fingers he's crushing between his. Will clear the table after dinner and slips her soiled paper napkin into the pocket of his robes. Once, when they were sitting out on the porch and drinking lemonade, Hermione couldn't finish her glass of lemonade because she got brain-freeze, and Ron took it from her under the pretense of not wasting any of Mum's lemonade, but Ginny saw his lips and tongue and heart on the rim where hers had touched. Another time, Ginny walked into her room and found Ron lying, asleep, on her bed, which she's given up to Hermione, face pressed the comforter Hermione lies on all night because it's too hot to sleep under it. Wouldn't be surprised if Ron resorted to sneaking into the washroom after Hermione left, if only to press his face against her newly-rinsed washcloth, if only to wonder what it would be like to be so close to Hermione's soft, damp skin. As Ginny has done. As Ginny's stood in the bathroom, debating the ethics of touching Hermione's toothbrush because it's the closest she'll ever get to those neat, white teeth and the other wonders of that neat, pale mouth.  
  
Weasleys aren't pretty in obsession, but Hermione's not pretty either. She's nothing like Harry -- looking at him was like asking your heart to stop beating or like Alice who was curved and elegant and so beautiful that even Charlie, when he was home for a visit, couldn't help sneaking an admiring look at that blonde hair which looked like it would be as cool as water through your fingers. Hermione has kinky brown hair that'd be pretty if it decided on either red or blonde highlights. Pale lips that aren't pink unless she puts gloss on them, rather wrinkled fingers that are smudged from ink, eyebrows that ought to grow some more to look right in that long, sharp face, and clothes that're even dowdier than Ginny's. Sundresses, for Christ's sake. Shapeless t-shirts. Leggings, and ratty, baggy jeans with holes in the knees.  
  
For Christ's sake. She's got legs. Long, beautiful legs, a ram-rod straight posture, absolutely beautiful fingers, an elegant neck and this lazy-soft way of moving, somewhat like a cat but tidier, more control. At least she doesn't have acne, Ginny thinks. Loving a girl as plain as Hermione with *acne* would be the ultimate humiliation.  
  
It is humiliating sitting at dinner and listening to her and Mum talk. Mum, as you are now painfully aware, was Head Girl and a decent Chaser to boot, and she got a mind-bending eleven OWLs. Twelve. Hermione got twelve too, and she and your Mum have discussions comparing changes in the curriculum. You scraped through with something like eight and an almost- OWL in Charms, and then, you'd studied until you nearly went blind.  
  
Hermione didn't study until she went blind, but according to Ron, nobody studies as much as his 'Mione. She's been trying to study since she's come to the Burrow, and yesterday, with the twins setting off confetti bombs in the back yard to scare off the gnomes, Mum suggested at lunch that you show Hermione a quieter place, maybe in the orchard or something, where she can study and get a little peace from those imbeciles outside.  
  
You'd nearly choked on the cold chicken you were eating, and while you hacked it out, Ron protested and tried to say that since 'Mione was *his* guest, *he* ought to show her around.  
  
Mum noted that he ought to show the hoe around the vegetable garden and that, in fact, since he'd been supposed to do that this morning, while he was off haring and catching a cold in the river, he could jolly well do that tomorrow afternoon.  
  
And that was that.  
  
And this is this: that at eleven o'clock, Ginny Weasley is standing by the front door of the Burrow, watching Hermione Granger come down the stairs. Granger is wearing a yellow sundress with little white buttons and tiny lace at the hem. She's got a little satchel of books in one hand, a silly straw hat in the other, and white tennis shoes with no socks, and Ginny, who has a picnic basket full of drinks and sandwiches in her hands -- Ginny has never wanted anything so desperately in her life.  
  
She wants to kiss Hermione until Hermione cries out and can't breathe anymore; she wants to run her hands along those fine, pale arms up to the point where they meet her torso and investigate that smooth junction. With a vividness that would make her blush if she weren't so caught up in this sudden thrall, Ginny wants to push Hermione back onto those stairs and lift that yellow sundress above Granger's knees and run her fingers and lips and tongue along the seams of the white panties she knows Hermione is wearing.  
  
Ginny wants Hermione. Ginny wants Hermione. Ginny wants Hermione. She can feel it running so loud in her head that she's almost amazed that Ron can't hear it, but then again, he's absorbed in looking at her too. Probably looking at her tits or something, Ginny thinks with a sudden twist of hatred. Stupid Ron. Can't he see those beautiful wrists, the collarbones? When Hermione gets to the landing, Ginny almost walks up to her and puts her arm around Hermione's waist, just to protect her from Ron who doesn't know how fine and well-made Hermione is.  
  
But Ginny gets her head back once she gets some fresh air.  
  
She's forgotten just how dangerous it is to be around someone she loves, really, because she's been away from love so long. If she doesn't watch it, she'll do something horrible, and Hermione will move out of her room, and she won't be able to fall asleep listening to Hermione breathe.  
  
She'll take Hermione to the orchard, Ginny thinks. It's not really their orchard -- it actually belongs to the village where they live, but since it's a bit out of the way and the apple trees are so old that they don't produce anymore, nobody goes there. Plenty of shade and quiet for Hermione, and since it's safe and all and on a clearly marked dirty path, Ginny can take her there. Dump the picnic basket next to her, and then run like hell before she shows Hermione just how badly she wants her.  
  
Because Ginny instinctively knows that it's a bad thing to let Hermione know you want her. Those brown eyes could eat you alive, not that they mean to, but just look at Hermione. There isn't an ounce of covering flesh on her -- it's muscle and sharp bone and pale skin that's like the white of an eye, and that brown hair is the exact same color as her eyes. One giant eye. Watching. Thinking. Waiting -- the intelligence in it could swallow you whole and not even notice.  
  
But, hang it all, Ginny thinks, letting Hermione walk in front of her on the road to the orchard, she wants Hermione the way she wants a drink of water right now. Wants to press her mouth to that skin and drink the brilliance from it and never let go, and after a while, Hermione doesn't want to walk in front of Ginny anymore. Granger slows down a little, and they walk together, down the road.  
  
Hermione asks Ginny little questions. Do you want to try out for Quidditch next year, what's your favorite class, isn't Arithmancy fascinating? And pays little compliments too, Ginny notices. Harry says you've got wonderful reflexes and a great seat, I really hated Charms my fourth year, but it pays off in Talismans and Totems, which is why you ought to take Secondary Arithmancy in the first term so you can take that the introduction to that class the second term. Compliments, really, but they're not the kind people usually give Ginny. Not the kind that girls gunning for Prefect or Head Girl give her.  
  
And Hermione's standing very close to her, so close that Ginny can see the little freckles on her shoulder from where she's been spending too much time in the sun, smell the sea-like odor of this Muggle sun block Hermione has put on, and the little patches where she hasn't spread it out evenly. The little hairs curling in the nape of her neck, the tiny fine hairs on her the backs of her arms, the overwhelming *paleness* of this girl who lives for books and Harry Potter, and she's walking so much closer to Ginny than she normally does to people, and every once in a while, she'll shoot Ginny these strange little looks from underneath the brim of her sun-hat. Strange looks, trembling with emotion, steady with calculation.  
  
When they're about three hundred yards from the orchard, a sudden wind blows the dust around their ankles. It snaps Hermione's loose sundress to the side like a flag, and Ginny has to shield her eyes to keep the grit from getting into her eyes.  
  
Hermione, though, holds those long, pale white arms high above her head, ostensibly to hold her hat down in the sudden wind, and all of a sudden Ginny realizes that the girl her brother wants so badly, the one who loves Harry far worse than she used to love him -- this girl is trying to seduce her, by all of Merlin's three thousand and sixty seven body parts. That's what this dress and that hat and those compliments mean. Hermione wants to seduce her, with the yellow dust blowing around her ankles and that ridiculous hat flapping in the wind and those eyes lazy with sun but so sharp. The idea's ridiculous. If Hermione wants someone to warm her bed, the logical thing to do would be to get Ron. Make Harry jealous of best friend or something. Find somebody with comparable body parts, somebody she can pretend is sliding into her.  
  
But, no, Hermione wants her. Is it because she's got the same general body- shape as Harry does? Ron's shorter, wider across the shoulders, while Ginny's tall, taller than Hermione. She hasn't stood close enough to Potter to tell whether she's about his height, but Ginny supposes she might be. Might be, could be, and oh, the parts on Hermione's lips that were damp are suddenly touched with bright yellow road-dust.  
  
Is that it? Something close enough to Potter she can pretend it's him; something different enough so that she won't feel guilty. Ron's too close to the bone, and the twins are utterly out of the question, but what about the little sister? I heard she likes girls.  
  
I don't like girls, Ginny thinks. I don't like boys either, and I don't like myself or human beings most days, but oh, you and Allison and Harry are alien creatures. Not from this Earth. Allison was everything that I'm not, and Harry's everything that I'll never be, and you're -- if I could explain why I wanted you so badly, I suspect that I'll stop wanting you, which would be a good thing except that this horribly tangled feeling inside my heart tells me I'll never be able to explain, Ginny thinks with this funny twitching in her throat, like she's going to cry, even though she's not going to do anything remotely of that sort, even though she could pass it off as the dust blowing into her eyes.  
  
She wonders whether Hermione thinks that she's smart enough to figure it out, then realizes that, first, the thought's probably never even entered Granger's head and, secondly, it doesn't really matter. She's watched Hermione all these days, and Ron hasn't done anything when Hermione just might take him because she needs Harry so bad -- Ron, you brought her home so you could love her while she waited for Harry to come. It's your fault, Ginny thinks. You were the one who showed her to me; you were the one who fell in love with her, and you're my brother. I can't be blamed for this, Ginny thinks, and leans down into the shade of the ridiculous hat to lick damp lines on Hermione's lips.  
  
*  
  
end  
  
*  
  
Feedback to rhoddlet@hotmail.com  
  
  
  
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http://joyce.jteers.net/rhoddlet/  
  
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